


Volunteers

by Bingo (Zebra), Yuletide (Zebra)



Series: Advent Challenge: Christmas Round 2011 [7]
Category: Captain Future - Fandom
Genre: AU Bingo Fill, Advent Calendar - Day 7, Advent Challenge 2011, Alternate Universe, Beta Wanted, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-07
Updated: 2011-12-07
Packaged: 2017-10-27 01:37:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/290235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zebra/pseuds/Bingo, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zebra/pseuds/Yuletide
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternate version of fleeing Astarfall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Volunteers

**Author's Note:**

> This also fills the [Alternate Universe Bingo](http://au-bingo.livejournal.com/) prompt "Volunteers".

Another tremor shook their makeshift ship. This world was about to end. But Joan had another concern. His words had chilled her, it was as if he was saying goodbye, expecting to die.

While the others were busy with preparations for the start, she crept after him. Wanting to get to the bottom of this.

Maybe there was a problem with the cyclotron, maybe it would leak radiation when turned on.

Whatever it was, there had to be a way to save him.

She followed him down to the engine room.

Captain Future was talking to George McClinton. The blood froze in her veins, when she finally understood that the cyclotron needed calcium to work and the Captain meant to sacrifice the calcium in his own bones to give them all a chance at surviving Astarfall's death.

McClinton tried to argue with him, tried to tell the Captain that he was needed more then himself. The men grappled, McClinton no match for Captain Future's almost inhuman strength. A measured hit and he folded like a house of cards. Captain Future lay him down gently, making sure he was alright, before preparing to enter the engine.

She couldn't let that happen. He wasn't meant to die here, the universe needed him. Needed him more than anyone else on board this ship.

She put her weapon on stun and shot him. He never had a chance to see it coming.

"I'm sorry, Captain. I just can't let you die."

There was only one choice now.

Joan entered the cyclotron and waited for the inevitable.

* * *

By the time Captain Future came to again, everything was over.

They were aboard a Planet Patrol ship. The prisoners in their cells.

Captain Future had woken up in some crewman's quarter.

It had taken him a few moments to come fully awake, to realize that Otto had been far too quiet.

In the end it had been Simon who spoke, and even he hadn't been able to keep the emotion out of his voice.

He had spoken of Joan's sacrifice, tried to console his ward, but his words had not reached the young man.

No matter how useless, the Captain went over the events gain and again, trying to analyze where he went wrong, to figure out where he had failed. It had been him who had been supposed to die, not sweet, innocent Joan.

Finally something Simon said had broken through the stupor. It had not only been Joan who had been lost on their makeshift ship.

There had been another volunteer needed to secure their return.

The engines hadn't had enough energy to bring them to the intergalactic shipping lanes. They had needed to call somebody to come for them, but their energy stores had had run too low to power the communicator.

It had been Grag's idea to use his batteries for the vital call.

The call went out, and after what seemed like an eternity to them, had been picked up.

But by then it had been too late for Grag. What ever had given the robot life originally, it had been more then the sum of his programming. When they had hooked Grag up to a power source again, he had been nothing but a very advanced automaton. Gone was wit and humor, cold obedience and logic the only thing remaining.

Otto hadn't been able to see his friend turned into such a thing and had finally simply turned Grag off.

* * *

The news were still full with the wondrous story of Astarfall and Captain Future's creation of a space ship out of nothing, when another news came in.

There had been an explosion on Earth's Moon. A Planet Patrol team charged with getting behind the occurrence had managed to confirm that it had been the Futurebase of which not one usable shred remained.

But they hadn't been able to confirm whether what remained of the Futurecrew had been present at the time of the explosion or not.

In the times to come, during the dead of shifts, crews out deep in space would report catching a sensor wisp of a ship and the ghost of a call searching for the lost members of the Futurecrew.

☙End❧

* * *


End file.
